


Beyond the Bend

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, Breaking Up & Making Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 06:05:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14206737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: Maybe it’s more accurate to say that Shuu’s been ripped off from where he was embedded in the plaster of Tatsuya’s bathroom wall so the only thing left is the medicine cabinet and the skeletons of pipes.





	Beyond the Bend

**Author's Note:**

> takes place before/around the same time as 'before noon' 
> 
> happy(???) 4/4

The words have been threatening to fall from Tatsuya’s mouth since the last fight, the fight before. Overripe fruit, its tether to the branch straining but only snapping now, in reaction to the other snap that ought to have come already but hasn’t (and that’s only going to be bitterly funny after three months and four drinks and even then, not really).

“When is it enough?” Tatsuya says, lifting his head to meet Shuu’s gaze with his own. “When are you going to be sick of me fucking up and stop giving me chances?”

Shuu looks at him, his face frozen in a particular permutation of angry and frustrated and exhausted, like he’s waiting for Tatsuya to say something else. It’s probably obvious to him that this, as impulsive as it is, has been waiting to come for some time, but it’s not a hole poked in a sagging pipe. There’s no rush of explanation, elaboration; the words stake their own claim, standing alone.

“Jesus,” Shuu finally says. “What—why? Do you want me to?”

This was a mistake; it’s ringing loud in Tatsuya’s ears but it’s out there and he can’t stop it; he’s thrown the first punch, made the implications all too clear.

“You have to draw the line somewhere,” Tatsuya says. “I’m not trying to stomp all over you, but I keep fucking up anyway, and every time I expect you to say that’s it or this is enough or by this point I need to stop it, but you fucking don’t and I’m just waiting for you to hit your limit, or let me know you’re close, or fucking something.”

Shuu is staring at him like one of those fish that just opens and closes its mouth, not even like he’s talking silently, as if he’s processing his thoughts faster than he can decide whether to speak or not.

“Where do I stand with you? Are you going to let me know?”

“Tatsuya,” says Shuu, drawing a breath like cinched drapes. “I—I had no idea. If I thought we needed to talk about it, I would have brought it up—I mean, how the hell was I supposed to know?”

Tatsuya just looks back at Shuu, because for everything that Shuu’s done right—

“I’m not fucking psychic, Tatsuya. I don’t know what you’re feeling; half the time you don’t want me to know anyway, and I’m sick of having to figure it out. If you want me to know how you feel, just tell me.”

“What was I supposed to do, ask you when you were going to get tired of me and dump me? You can’t just do that—”

“You just did,” says Shuu.

“And,” says Tatsuya, and then nothing. And what? Saying it’s just going to force more of it out like wet concrete, solidifying around their legs and pulling them under, give Shuu ideas that maybe he hadn’t had, the inescapable grasp of being doomed to impermanence.

Shuu sighs. “Fuck, Tatsuya. I mean, I just—this isn’t something you just throw around, and like. I didn’t want you to be scared of me turning on you or something, but—I’m just, confused I guess. How did you get there? Why are you projecting all these thoughts and feelings onto me?”

“Because I keep fucking up! I keep fucking up, and at the end of the day you keep taking me back and it keeps repeating and it’s like—how do you know someday I’ll stop? How do I know you’re not just enabling me?”

“What kind of complex do you have? You’re an asshole sometimes, and you’re stubborn about it and you’re weird about your feelings but like—don’t act like you’re the only one, or that it’s like some kind of grievous crime.”

“Come on, Shuu. Don’t pretend you fuck up all the time.”

“You’re acting like you think you’re the fucking worst. I don’t know if you’re, like, fishing for compliments or trying to martyr yourself but this doesn’t all go back to you being a horrible human being or whatever. Do you just bring that up because you’re deflecting about the real issues or whatever?”

“No,” says Tatsuya. “It’s not—it wouldn’t bother you or me this much if it didn’t fucking happen all the time because I can’t—won’t, whatever.”

It’s like all the air is being sucked out of him; he hates arguing and he’s sick of arguing with Shuu. Normally at this point they’d have stopped fighting but now it just feels like they’re winding around in circles and not saying anything, the ball circling the rim without falling through the hoop, like water circling a clogged drain refusing to go through fast enough. Like they’re accomplishing nothing, like if they make up right now they’ll be no closer to fixing any of the issues Tatsuya’s finally forced himself to talk about, and that he’ll clamp back down on like sitting on an overstuffed suitcase.

“So where do I stand?” Tatsuya says.

“I don’t fucking know,” says Shuu. “I don’t know what you want me to say; I wasn’t even considering, but when you say stuff like this…I don’t know.”

And it folds out in front of Tatsuya, treading forward until the soles of his shoes wear through and he is still attached by a thread, the weight of everything bearing down on him still, that Shuu is too good for him and he’s going to do something stupid that he should have outgrown again, the thoughts that do more harm than good but that he can’t ignore.

Shuu’s too good for him; Tatsuya had once been able to banish that thought, at first when this relationship wasn’t this kind of relationship, then because he’d convinced himself he was going to enjoy it and let it run its course, take advantage and make Shuu feel good and feed off that. And somewhere, no particular point except for all of them, this had all gone horribly right and Shuu’s practically living in his apartment and Taiga’s okay making jokes about the two of them being old and cohabiting or married or something, and Tatsuya can’t pretend he has nothing to lose or that this is fun. And the temporariness of it is no longer an assurance; it’s a worry. It’s not when, it’s if, but then if becomes when again; they’re going to break up because Tatsuya keeps fucking up like he did when he could pretend it didn’t matter and he can’t shift his gears to this. Shuu’s not perfect but he can do better than Tatsuya’s passive-aggressive fight picking, the defensiveness that he hasn’t tried too hard to turn into something more open. He can do better than a relationship where the fights always seem to be defined by Tatsuya’s insecurities and faultlines flaring up like scalding geysers. There are guys out there who are warm and gregarious for real the way Tatsuya only pretends to be, or less so but still more than Tatsuya actually is. Shuu deserves the best, and Tatsuya’s best isn’t a whole lot better than his worst.

“So,” he says.

“So,” says Shuu.

He looks tired, angry, sick of all this bullshit; Tatsuya wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around Shuu but it’s his own damn fault that Shuu is all of those right now.

“I guess that’s it then,” says Tatsuya.

Shuu does something like a half-flinch. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Yeah,” says Tatsuya.

He can barely breathe at the hurt on Shuu’s face, clearer than the view from the fiftieth floor on a good day. Shuu’s the one who turns away first this time.

A few minutes and it all comes undone, easier to strike a knife through the Gordian knot than to create something so convoluted, quicker to implode a building than to build it up. A twenty-point lead in the fourth quarter, a relationship, a bone in one’s forearm. But any observation like that is bound to be worse; the earthquake only destroys what was built above a crack and the lead disappears when your defense or your coaching or your both is prone to questionable decisions; the worst fractures are stress fractures gone undetected until they’ve cracked across, splintering bones that can’t be ignored. It’s like all those years ago, punching Taiga in the face, as if their brotherhood had been perfect and beautiful before, smashed apart completely just then and hadn’t been already dangling by a thread for so long. Fifteen, twenty years later, and Tatsuya’s making the same mistakes all over again.

People say mistakes aren’t bad in and of themselves, but it’s the failure to learn, when you repeat the same mistake over again, that’s bad. Tatsuya would argue the first point, but he’d agree that a repetition is worse. His own failure to overcome the worst parts of himself is staring him in the face, and maybe this is different on the surface but it’s the same on the inside. He can’t be the perfect brother, the perfect boyfriend; he can’t even be adequate, shooting himself in the foot and the nose and all the non-proverbial places.

Telling himself it’s his own damn fault only goes so far; he’s never had any problem taking the blame. He doesn’t do anything with it, though; he doesn’t go beyond the first step; he’s caught up in feeling like shit and trying to talk himself out of it. He’s the one who had dumped Shuu; the whole thing is his fault; he doesn’t get to wallow in the misery. He deserves to walk on sharp needles, the things Shuu had left in the apartment and the things they’d bought together, the grocery list with “eggs” and “coffee filters” written in Shuu’s cramped script, the presets on the radio at home set by Shuu to match his car.

He stays even later after practice when he’d usually cut it short to get a few more reps in; he’s got no one to go home to and no desire to go back to the apartment right now. He hasn’t stayed that late since he was younger, shooting more and more out of paranoia and drive. They’d made him cut back after the surgery, and he’d fought it for a bit but then he’d met Shuu and that had made it easier not to. The medical staff two years ago was almost completely different; Tatsuya wonders if they remember he’s not supposed to stay this late, but they haven’t told him to stop yet. Maybe his knee’s fixed up enough for it not to matter; maybe they’ve given up on him.

His jaw aches from clenching it too tightly; his shoulders are sore from tension; it’s the bad kind of hurt. He wants the good kind, like after the first day of a harder practice, the kind that drains thoughts of anything else (he’s not there yet if he’s thinking about pretending not to hurt and Shuu rubbing his back right now; he misses two easy shots in a row).

Tatsuya jerks his head at one of the chattier assistant coaches; it can be kind of a chore to pick out the valuable information from all the words he says but it’s enough of a distraction right now. They talk about his form, about his line of vision, grips. Tatsuya shoots again and again; he makes ten in a row and then fifteen; he just wants to go home but he switches to footwork drills, the things that are already in his muscle memory and take over on instinct late in the game, but better safe than sorry.

Taiga calls that evening. Tatsuya doesn’t want to answer, but he picks up anyway; it’s possible Shuu didn’t tell him, that he’s just calling to say hi, or to tell Tatsuya to stop mooching off his Netflix account and messing up his recommendations with shitty CW dramas. But that would mean Tatsuya has to tell him, and he doesn’t want to—but he can’t just leave that to Shuu, too.

“Hi, Taiga.”

“Hey,” says Taiga. “I didn’t wake you up or anything?”

“Nah, I was just watching TV.”

“Okay,” says Taiga, and then it sounds like he’s exhaling. “Shou told me you and Shuuzou broke up.”

“Yeah,” says Tatsuya, and his voice doesn’t break or come out wrong.

“Tatsuya…”

The words stick in Tatsuya’s throat like he’s just swallowed a mouthful of peanut butter; he can’t say it was his fault and he doesn’t want to talk about it, rake across the open cuts with something rough. He’s too tired to even let himself bristle and go on the defensive; he doesn’t have it in him.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally.

“What—no, don’t apologize to me, I’m not—like, okay, I’m not happy, but.”

He and Shuu aren’t the only ones hurt; they’re not the only ones he’s disappointed. They weren’t dating in a void, or dating for such a short period that their lives hadn’t become irrevocably tangled up, mutual friends and a shared family and threads knotted together now cut and bleeding like opened veins.

“Is....do you want to talk about it?”

If Tatsuya didn't feel so horrible he'd laugh and he almost makes himself do it anyway. “No.”

“Tatsuya...”

He bites back the words that hover right below the roof of his mouth about Taiga satisfying his own curiosity; it's cruel and pointless and he doesn’t want to drive Taiga away, too, even if he wouldn’t fall for something so transparent.

“I’m okay,” he says.

“Fuck you are,” says Taiga.

Tatsuya swallows. He hasn’t cried, for all the anger and sadness and weight over the past couple of days; he hasn’t even really wanted to. But this has him breaking over another crack he hadn’t noticed for all the others. He can’t reiterate; he can’t cry to Taiga like this, about this.

“Tatsuya?”

“Yeah?” (This time his voice comes out more ragged; Taiga has to notice it.)

“I’m sorry. It sucks. Even if you think it’s totally your fault, it doesn’t mean you’re not hurting or you shouldn’t hurt. You love him.”

Tatsuya wants to hang up the phone; he doesn’t trust himself to say anything. He pulls his knees up to his chest and tries to focus on the TV through his blurring vision.

“You can talk to me if you need it, okay? Or Shou.”

“He’s probably mad at me, though.”

“We’re not choosing sides,” says Taiga, a shitty sidestep that were Tatsuya feeling in a more combative mood he’d counter.

He doesn’t, though; his chest is tight when he hangs up. He tries to breathe deep, but all that gets him is a silent sob, his face crumpling slowly. He’s alone, but he clutches the shitty throw pillow to his face, a makeshift mop for the tears leaking from his eye and the snot suddenly coming from his nose. Now that he’s let himself get this far, he can’t pull back or stay the same; it all comes rushing forward. Shuu’s face, Shuu’s voice, when Tatsuya had said all of those things. The quiet closing of the door when Tatsuya knew Shuu was mad enough to slam it shut behind him, the feeling of having disappointed Shuu (the feeling persistent in his gut after every fight) replaced by something worse, something threatening to tear him open and make him violently ill. The pillow is disgusting, cold and wet against his face; he turns it over.

It's fucking stupid, is what it is; dwelling on it won’t make him a better person, stop him from fucking up just as much without Shuu as with him, and maybe with less guilt. Maybe it’ll just make him worse. He hates this shit. The soreness is starting to kick in; it’s better than feeling out of practice but it still feels heavy, pinning him down, and even though he’s exhausted it’s still a few hours before he falls asleep, dreading the gaping hole of the places Shuu had occupied.

* * *

Shuu doesn’t really leave a gaping hole behind him, though. He leaves several. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that he’s been ripped off from where he was embedded in the plaster of Tatsuya’s bathroom wall so the only thing left is the medicine cabinet and the skeletons of pipes. It’s dramatic; Tatsuya’s the one who’d thrust the crowbar in all the way himself. He’d just never thought he’d let anyone get this far in, this ingrained in his life. It was going to hurt; he hadn’t known it was going to hurt like all the skin ripped off his right leg.

And then thinking about that makes Tatsuya think about Shuu even more, Shuu kissing the finally-fading scars on his knee that still can’t quite pass for stretch marks, the blaring reminders of the surgery he’d had, before they’d met. The other half of a divider, the image in a shattered mirror. It’s not that bad; it shouldn’t be that bad. Tatsuya can’t let it be that bad, but fuck, does it hurt, the knife twisting like a corkscrew burying itself in his flesh.

It’s not just all the stuff Shuu had had at his apartment; it’s not just sharing a bed or waking up to a text from across the country and maybe a picture, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sending Shuu a congratulatory message for a big hit or for leading the Devils to another W. It is all those things and everything else and it’s all the time, all the ways his life had slowly built up wrapping itself around Shuu and their relationship like ivy (only, like ivy, it had crumbled and strangled what was under it), time Tatsuya had once filled with other things. That’s not inconceivable now, except he’s used to filing it away and saving it for Shuu, consciously or intentionally or neither, dates and phone sex on the all-too-frequent occasion that one of them's on the road, driving out to Jersey to visit Shuu or pick him up and bring him back because he hates parking in the city, coming back after a run in the morning and fixing another pot of coffee because Shuu gets up late, being back from the shower and Shuu pulling him back into bed, seconds and minutes and hours that add up to leave a giant gaping maw in the day.

He should be too proud to admit it but he can’t not; it’s too big to pretend it’s not there and it feels so strange, sitting back on the couch when the air’s empty around him. Shuu’s on a road trip; he wouldn’t be there anyway—but Tatsuya’s phone screen is dark and he can’t not think about the feeling of sinking, a tightness in his face even when he doesn’t feel like crying at all. He’s a goalie and the future’s waving its stick in his face, interference but there are no refs here. The future is nothing, just basketball and then a blank space after that. But that’s what it was for a long time; even after pro ball started feeling real, after he’d met Shuu, Tatsuya had never wanted to peer far down that corridor and speculate. It’s too hard to count on what he has; it’s easy to count on the things he doesn’t have staying lost. It’s easy now to think about all the futures he’s not going to have, all the Cups Shuu will lift, the championship rings and Olympic medals that some other person will congratulate him for, someone better than Tatsuya could ever hope to be. He tells himself it’s stupid again; he discards that thought like a tissue meant for and missing the trash can. Sure, it’s stupid to wallow in prospective futures that make him feel worse, but it feels good to cry about it; maybe it’s a fake catharsis but it’s better than the stasis of misery and constantly keeping himself in check, feeling like he’s going to cry but that he ought not to because he’s in public. It’s a little more acceptable at least to cry about the things he might have had and might have lost, rather than his own stupidity. It’s all the same in the end, but he’s got nothing but time to practice his own mental gymnastics, soaring around parallel bars and ducking under his own twirling arm.

Basketball and thinking himself in never-ending circles are the only things Tatsuya’s been doing, though. He doesn’t feel up to making dinner; he doesn’t feel up to sitting through more television. He watches hockey still, sometimes, checks points and penalty minutes and CORSI for his daily fantasy league. He watches the Devils and watches Shuu (no one’s ever accused him of not having a masochistic streak), skating loose, scoring a goal, checking the glass and grinning as his teammates crowd around him, landing a hit at center ice, blocking a shot, winning a fight, doing just fine without him.

Tatsuya supposes Shuu could be watching him (if he really liked basketball) and deduce the same, that Tatsuya had dumped him to make things better for himself, too. He’s playing better because he’s practicing more, demanding minutes like he hadn’t since he was twenty-five, filling up the spare time (reams like a broken printer spewing out pages that flutter to the office floor) with watching more video and reading scouting reports until his eye is seeing the tiny font on the page when he closes it and tries to sleep, buzzwords popping out in a nonsensical formation. He can’t not keep track of the points, assists, steals, he’s racking up, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He’s not worrying about fucking up as much because there’s no relationship to fuck up; he’s just aching from what’s already been fucked up. It’s worse, now; the stress of anticipation was nothing compared to the feeling of being impaled over and over again on his own words. Maybe it was the right thing, in the long run; maybe it’s better to do it now than to wait until he’d fucked up so much that Shuu would get tired of him. It has to be, but saying it is doesn’t make it easier. It just makes Tatsuya want to cry more.

He feels a little guilty for thinking of Taiga’s road trip swinging through the city as a distraction, a reason to talk about Shougo’s contract dispute and mutual acquaintances and to go out and drink together. But it’s Taiga, and he cares (too much, Tatsuya would say, but he cares the same) and he’s going to bring it up half-a-beer-and-still-looking-at-the-menu into dinner.

“Shuuzou said it’s not like, you guys hating each other,” Taiga says. “I mean, I know it’s not really my business, but…”

Tatsuya purses his lips. It feels like choosing sides to him, but everything does, and he doesn’t want to undermine Shuu with what he says.

“It’s complicated.”

It’s the most non-answer answer, typical of what he gives the press when they want to know the details of a win or a loss. But Shuu always says (said?) that Tatsuya needs to control the situation to suit his narrative, to push his agenda, or at least he’d said that in their bitterest fights. He doesn’t want to do that anymore; he doesn’t want that trait even though he wants to push Taiga into choosing a side and getting rid of the ambiguity. But he bites it down again.

“It wasn’t working,” Tatsuya says, and that much is true (they can’t say it was working if Tatsuya had felt that much on edge, whether any relationship Tatsuya could possibly have would have the same problem or not).

“Really?” Taiga says.

And he’d projected that it was working, enough to fool even Shuu to an extent, even when he’d been worried as fuck, and even when it actually wasn’t. Tatsuya shakes his head.

“It wasn’t. I thought I could pretend it was, fake it til we made it.”

“Oh,” says Taiga. “But, I mean.”

Tatsuya breathes. “I loved him, yeah.”

(Past tense, when it’s really past progressive. Taiga knows this much, or he should.)

“Then,” says Taiga

Tatsuya shakes his head. It’s not so easy as loving each other. It’s not as if he can go back and not be the way he is. Even if, in fifty years, they’re both single and both carry a torch, what are the chances? Would it even be worth it to try? Would Tatsuya simply regress to the way he is now?

They don’t speak again until the waiter comes to take their orders; the conversation steers itself into clearer waters. Taiga hugs Tatsuya extra-tight before he goes, and Tatsuya lets him, stupidly lonely as he is. It’s been a while since he’s had something more than a casual fist bump, an arm slung around his shoulder after hitting a particular shot. Tatsuya should feel pathetic, and he kind of does, but he doesn’t let it stop him.

* * *

It snows over Thanksgiving weekend and all of a sudden it’s officially winter; it even feels like the world is cooperating. The sun is close to disappearing over the New Jersey skyline when Tatsuya leaves afternoon practice; old men are bundled up with red kettles calling for donations (more socially acceptable, perhaps, than the mariachi band on a subway car, if slightly less intrusive). The fall beers are completely gone from the grocery store shelves, and the Sunday papers are thick with holiday sale advertisements. The snow melts a few days later, leaving only a few traces of salt, but it can’t take itself back.

Last year Shuu had been nursing a sore ankle (good enough to skate, he’d claimed, but he’d been trying to avoid driving) and they’d practically holed up in the apartment together, falling asleep with the TV on and cooking elaborate dinners that were only slightly breaking their nutrition plans. Cooking’s not really worth it if it’s only for himself, even when he feels like it, so Tatsuya orders Chinese takeout from the place Shuu doesn’t like and settles down in front of some schlocky holiday movie channel with a beer. Some old movie he doesn’t know is just finishing; the bottom of the screen reminds him that next is It’s a Wonderful Life. The buzzer rings, and Tatsuya wonders if this time through Jimmy Stewart will realize he didn’t matter after all (a brazenly nihilistic thought, sure, but if he’s regressing to the age of twelve he might as well go all the way).

He grabs another beer from the fridge on his way by, and three scenes into It’s a Wonderful Life he’s tuned out the sounds of the movie and even most of his coherent thoughts.

He wakes up to the piercing sound of a cell phone, the default ringtone for some carrier’s flip phones—Verizon? Cingular? A woman on TV is ignoring the shirtless man in her bed in favor of the piercing ringtone; it’s Love Actually. How many movies has it been since he fell asleep? Tatsuya reaches out; the container of dumplings on the coffee table is lukewarm. Maybe just most of the two of them. He checks his phone; it’s half after ten. Shuu’s probably just getting out of the locker room after his game, his hair wet from the shower, bag slung over his shoulder to be dumped in the backseat of his Acura. He shouldn’t be thinking about Shuu all the time anymore. He’s so fucking pathetic; what's the use of all this if he can’t move on?

Tatsuya dumps the rest of the second beer, warm from being clutched in his hand, down the kitchen sink. He turns off the TV, now moved on to a commercial, and powers up his laptop. Game video isn’t going to watch itself a third time; scouting the Blazers isn’t going to be any easier tomorrow. He watches their swingman drive to the basket again, slows it down, pays attention to the footwork, thinks about Shuu, skating, again.

“Stop,” he says, out loud.

His tone is whining; it bites with the dullest of teeth, on the wounds Tatsuya ripped into himself. Shuu, watching video with him and making useless commentary until he’d coax Tatsuya off to bed with him. Shuu, teaching him how to skate, tugging Tatsuya forward without looking where they were headed. Tatsuya wants to punch the table hard enough to bruise his knuckles, but he lets his clenched fist shake in his lap instead.

* * *

Shougo's visa expires at the end of the month, something that would hardly be a problem if he didn’t refuse to sign with any team other than the Raptors. Tatsuya gets why he wants to hold out for more money, and at this point it’s a contest of who can outlast who, the team or the player. (But at this point do they want each other?) Were Tatsuya in the position of being underpaid by a team in a city he’d given everything over to, he would sign somewhere else. But despite their similarities, running in magma chambers deep enough below the surface, he and Shougo are still very different people, their conceptions of dignity and self-assertion not quite parallel.

Tatsuya’s not going to bring that up when Shougo stops by. It’s enough that Shougo’s staying with him, not Shuu (even if it’s only because Taiga had asked him to and because Tatsuya’s still kind of a mess but Shuu's fine). He doesn't even have to come to New York; he could get a nonstop flight to Toronto if he wanted. But it’s good to have him in the apartment, to have someone to cook for and talk to and distract Tatsuya from wallowing in himself.

Especially if it means Shougo coming to a game and critiquing him. If Shougo ever wants to be and someone ever wants to give him a shot, he’ll be a great coach someday. It would be easy for him not to be, his uncanny ability to synthesize and steal abilities for his own; it would be easy for him not to examine it. Except he studies it all, picks through it like he's finding lice with a fine-toothed comb, knows the right words in four languages for all of his own moves, and all the ones he can't or won't do. He’s read the game so many times it's been etched on the front of his eyes, a filter he watches other people play through. He’s blunt with his analysis, good or bad; he’ll cut to the chase instead of phrasing it in a way that he thinks Tatsuya will be receptive to, and it’s good to hear.

“That pass to Lawrence near the end of the second, you hesitated,” says Shougo.

“I know,” says Tatsuya.

“I know you know,” says Shougo, leaning forward against the surface of the table, his sleeves sticking to the surface. He doesn’t seem to care too much (and he’d agreed to go to a dive bar in the first place). “But, like. Your body hesitated before you fully committed to it, not that you could have undid it. You hesitated, and it gave them enough time.”

Tatsuya frowns, trying to remember his frame of mind.

“You should have shot it. Would have had a better chance.”

“Not much better.”

“Enough. Lawrence was open, but you weren’t.”

That’s fair. Shougo raps his knuckles on the surface of the table, thumbs his wedding ring. There's a fresh tattoo on his left hand, what looks like a flame, not the same kind of tacky Tatsuya sees on the boardwalk at the shore—saw on the boardwalk at the shore, when he went with Shuu.

“You’re thinking about him again,” says Shougo.

“Who?” says Tatsuya.

Shougo rolls his eyes. “Your boy Shuuzou, your one true love, the guy you dumped and now you're too proud to ask him back but you know he would—”

“No he wouldn't," Tatusya snaps. “Even if he would he shouldn’t.”

“Why not? You fucked up—”

“And it’s going to happen again. Shuu deserves—”

“What he wants,” says Shougo. “He deserves what he wants. And he was happy with you and he wants to be with you.”

“You didn’t know him before we were together.”

“Neither did you, not really. But I knew you, and Taiga knew you, and Shuuzou’s pretty up front about this stuff anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” says Tatsuya. “I just.”

“If he wants to give you another chance, he will,” says Shougo. “And I mean, like, you guys were together for years; you were at our fucking wedding and everything! Like. Not that I thought you guys would get married, but kind of, or at least something analogous, I guess? White picket fence, you know?”

“You don’t have a white picket fence,” says Tatsuya.

“I don’t have a fucking job,” says Shougo. “But listen, I’m unemployed and I can’t even get a visa to stay with Taiga full-time and we argue about stupid shit and we’re in different time zones most of the year and we can still stay together, so even if you think you fucked up—if he’s willing to forgive you and you’re willing to forgive yourself enough to move past it, then don’t give up something that makes you this happy.”

“I already—”

“Whatever,” says Shougo. “I mean, if you don’t want to, or if there’s something you don’t want to talk about, okay, but don’t act like you don't deserve to be happy just because you were a jerk or made a few mistakes with your boyfriend. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing sometimes; I’ve done a shitload of things I’m not too proud of, but it doesn't make me any less deserving of the happiness I have. If you're working on it, then, you know?”

Tatsuya is working on it; he's been working on it for years, but working on it just doesn’t cut it when you're making this little progress. It’s easy for Shougo to say this when most of his transgressions are so far in the rearview mirror, when he’s clearly a better person than whoever he was ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Tatsuya can’t say the same for himself, but he also really doesn’t want to start shit right now (maybe that in and of itself is evidence that he’s grown some, but it’s probably just because he’s tired and really fucking miserable).

He shrugs. They sit silently for a while, until Shougo brings up the Maple Leafs.

* * *

Tatsuya hurtles toward the end of the year like a luger down the track, gaining speed and doing what he can to keep it up. Road trips and constant jet lag help; hitting a rut in performance helps. It’s something he can pretend to control, something he’s used to reining in, whose strings he’s used to pulling at, a familiar frustration that’s a comfort compared to missing Shuu like this. He looks in the mirror and tells his reflection how pathetic it is; it stares back and doesn’t reply and Tatsuya feels like even more of a fool, an empty head in a three-piece suit headed out to a sportswriters’ dinner to support Lawrence’s charity.

He tries not to think about going there last year with Shuu, playing footsie under the table and pawing at each other in the back of the cab back to his apartment, but he’s tired enough that he can get his brain on autopilot, running through his mistakes in last night’s game. It’s enough, when he greets Lawrence and when he finds his seat, during mindless small talk with reporters about hockey.

Then Shuu sits down next to him.

The roof of his mouth is dry; why haven’t they served water yet? Why hadn’t he just taken a drink from the refreshments table?

“Hi,” Tatsuya says.

“Hi,” says Shuu.

Tatsuya offers a half-smile; Shuu will know it’s fake but it’s intended as a courtesy. It gives him half a second to look at Shuu, absent the bulk of his hockey gear, the height of his skates. His suit jacket is just a little tight, straining at the shoulders, enough to emphasize that he’s definitely gained a little more muscle on top of all he already had. Shuu in peak hockey season is unreal, body like a titanium suit of armor, all lean muscle that could toss Tatusya ten feet in the air if he wanted to. Tatsuya’s eye flicks back to the tablecloth; maybe Shuu knows he’s looking. But he’s not acting like Tatsuya shouldn’t look.

“How are things?” Shuu says.

Tatsuya sees his face start to curl, almost into a wince, and yeah that was awkward. Cute, but Tatsuya’s not in a position to tease, maybe not even to really think that.

“You know. The usual. Eighty-two game grind, you know about that.”

“Do I,” says Shuu, snorting. “Home and home next week.”

“With the Flyers, yeah, oof.”

Shuu looks half-surprised for a second, but then nods. Like he’d expected Tatsuya to stop watching, like he’d thought Tatsuya’s anger with him would supersede his masochism and his love of hockey. Or maybe that Tatsuya wouldn’t admit it, because there were times in his life when he wouldn’t have. Not now, though, when he’s teetering on the edge of giving up and just not giving a shit. It’s not like Shuu doesn’t already think he’s pathetic (though, really, of all the pathetic shit Tatsuya’s pulled, rooting for a hockey team captained by his ex isn’t among them).

“Got any tips for me?” says Shuu.

It’s light, but it cuts deep anyway, the same tone he’d used when they were together. There’s a lot Tatsuya’s had to say about shitty penalties and being in the wrong place that Shuu almost definitely already knows but Tatsuya had wanted to tell him, but he can’t think of them now, not in a way he can say them. Tatsuya shakes his head, and the moment’s lost.

* * *

Tatsuya daydreams about apologizing. He imagines scenarios in which he and Shuu are alone in a well-lit room and Shuu is happy; his injuries aren’t acting up and the Devils have won two straight at home. He listens, and he accepts it, and Tatsuya's mind hits a dead end after that. Because what then? He can get behind the idea of a Shuu who can forgive him (regardless of whether he should or shouldn’t), the same Shuu who’s forgiven him so many times before. But the concept of what comes next is alien Is this it; are they over it? That scenario is a familiar and clear one, the lonely trajectory forward that even someone as masochistic as Tatsuya might have trouble embracing. A steady road, no bends or bumps, no one to hold his hand on the console. It hurts more to think about him and Shuu getting back together, a ridiculous premise that tastes like undercooked potatoes in his mouth.

He wakes up with the sheets twisted around him, pinning the remnants of his dream to his skin. Of course this is all invading his subconscious, too; of course he’s dreaming about Shuu. Except the apologies are different than in the ones he consciously creates, in the words that Tatsuya already can’t quite remember but also in the feeling. The sentiment behind the lost words is still here, settled into Tatsuya, along with the thoughts he’d had, springing to his dream self’s tongue. What he’d needed to apologize for hadn’t been his mistakes, his defensiveness, or even all of that in repetition. It’s the words and the thoughts he’d attributed to Shuu without asking or deducing, the things he’d unfairly decided were facts and ran with them like a basketball until he'd tried to put them through the hoop and they’d fallen apart. Too late for the things he’d already committed to, for the arguments just unseen beneath the surface, waiting to rise again; too late for Tatsuya to take back dumping Shuu. Too late for him to consider the way Shuu had been feeling.

Tatsuya’s mouth is dry; he leans forward and points his toes. He’s thought about how Shuu had said the things he had, how wrong things had felt, all of it coming back to the way he’d felt. Shuu’s feelings had been retrofitted to suit his narrative, regardless of what they actually were; it’s not as if Tatsuya had done much more than assume. His stomach is rolling; he feels like—this isn’t the time to lay the blame on himself all over again. He’s been arrogant and antagonistic, with no justification, and Shuu deserves to know he’s sorry. Maybe Shuu doesn’t need that kind of closure, and maybe the apology would be more for Tatsuya than for Shuu, and maybe it’s something that only makes sense when Tatsuya’s this close to dreaming still.

He’s feeling closer to awake now, though, and he has enough of his bearings to scribble down some hasty notes on a post-it before rearranging the covers and slipping back into sleep.

There are no more dreams, at least none that stick; when Tatsuya wakes up he doesn’t need to look at the piece of paper. He remembers the look in dream-Shuu’s eyes, a good enough facsimile of reality. When he looks in the bathroom mirror, his own tired face stares back, the truth etched on some layer of the glass. He needs to apologize, for being inconsiderate, for hurting Shuu at all, for not letting him in. Because Shuu deserves it, because Tatsuya misses him—not that this should bring him back, not that this is meant to clear the way for that. Shuu deserves closure, and he deserves to move forward, to look back or or not, to make the choices Tatsuya wouldn’t let him make before.

* * *

By Christmas Shougo’s back in the States with Taiga, after a modest break of a few weeks, only a little bit of time in the scheme of things. He and Taiga look relaxed, in a way, despite Shougo’s continued agitation with his nonexistent contract, when they both show up a few days before the Christmas game. Shougo’s let his hair grow out a little, and Taiga’s arm around his shoulders is relaxed like the middle of summer and not urgent like all-star weekend.

Taiga seems a little nervous, though, like he’s trying to ask a huge favor, or for forgiveness for some wrongdoing that’s about to come down on Tatsuya’s head. Tatsuya supposes if it were that urgent he’d have heard, but maybe that’s being stupidly optimistic. Maybe it’s something not unthinkably bad, but far beyond several bends in the thought patterns of his exhausted mind. But when Taiga insists on doing all the dishes, Tatsuya stops him—not that he doesn’t want the help (God, he’s sick of having to do all of his own damn dishes all the time).

“Out with it.”

“I—Shou and I are going to Shuuzou’s the day after the game and we were wondering if you could drive us? He said it’s okay for you to come, but we can take a cab or get a rental or—”

Tatsuya waves his hand. “It’s okay. I’ll drive you.”

(He is so fucking weak and obvious and desperate; he wants to see Shuu again even if they can barely get a few sentences out; he wants to apologize even if he wedges in his own irrelevant feelings into a hangout that’s supposed to be chill and where he doesn’t even belong in the first place. Apologies are selfish, after all, something given with the expectation of an acceptance (or at least in the hope of that—Tatsuya’s got no expectations; he knows how nice Shuu is but this isn’t an accident or a small prick; it’s something intended to gouge something else out even if he’s the only one still bleeding). And even if he gets there and can’t make himself say it, he doesn’t like being left out; even if he’s fucking miserable the whole time it’ll be better than staying home and telling himself he should have gone anyway.)

“Thanks,” says Taiga, and then hugs him.

(Tatsuya wonders if he really looks like he needs a hug—not worth wondering, though; he just pats Taiga on the back.)

“Still willing to do my dishes?”

Taiga snorts, but he pushes Tatsuya out of the kitchen. He’s too good.

The weather on the twenty-sixth agrees with Tatsuya’s mood, a rainy fifty after a loss to the Bulls that still would have sucked even if they’d won. Shougo’s already given him enough shit for it for Tatsuya to banish him to the backseat (and give Taiga a look that says don’t let him coerce you into joining him). He takes the sedan; Shougo only complains about his knees hurting for ten minutes while Tatsuya steadily turns up the volume on the radio. Taiga flips it back down when it really is too loud (too much like an arena when they’re trying to pump up the crowd) and they let the year-end retrospective of disposable hits play on. The route is so familiar Tatsuya could go it in his sleep, downtown through the Lincoln and over, through the winding merges and splits of the road as it becomes the turnpike. Shuu’s exit, missable if you’re not paying attention, like the first few times Tatsuya had come on his own, swearing and checking the time and debating whether to use the bluetooth to call Shuu and tell him he’d be late or not.

Tatsuya hasn't been to Shuu’s house in months, but it looks the same, mostly. The neighbors across the street have a full set of Christmas decorations; the ones two houses on the right have a menorah in the window. The for sale sign is gone from the house between theirs and Shuu’s; the same old splintered deck furniture is still out front and their Christmas tree is by the curb.

Tatsuya can’t remember when the garbage days are here anymore. Today, but they never showed up? Tomorrow? He pulls into the driveway and cuts the engine.

His fight or flight instinct kicks in; his hand’s still on the keys. He could turn them again and back out, gun it like an outlaw on the run (never mind Taiga and Shougo, Taiga’s eyes on his hand on the key). This won’t be that bad; he and Shuu have managed to act civil in a room full of (at best) acquaintances; they can keep it up in front of their family. (Maybe not, but maybe they can if Tatsuya thinks they can.)

All his internal debate is cut off by Taiga and Shougo opening their doors and Shuu opening the front door to the house in almost perfect synchronicity. Of course he’s wearing slide flip flops with socks in this cold, sweatpants with the waist rolled down, a ripped long sleeve t-shirt with bleach stains on the sleeves that of course Tatsuya recognizes. He’s slept in that shirt; Shuu knows he’s coming and he’d worn it anyway—but maybe that doesn’t matter so much, two months after their breakup. Maybe Tatsuya needs to get over it and Shuu’s been dealing with this in a healthy way (maybe it’s because Tatsuya needs to fucking apologize). Taiga and Shougo are closing their doors already, and Tatsuya’s hand is just on the lock button. He wrenches the door open and climbs out.

Taiga and Shougo are crowding Shuu (they dwarf him; Tatsuya’s only a little bit taller than Shuu but he could—not now, really—tease Shuu about that or at least commiserate about feeling small) and Tatsuya fusses with the car keys, pressing the lock button a few times (as if theft is likely here, as if someone would go for his ten-year-old tan Accord and as if Tatsuya would really miss it). Shuu ushers them in and then pauses, looking back at Tatsuya. He jerks his head. Tatsuya follows.

He’s not sure if a handshake or a hug is appropriate. (A chest bump? He’s definitely seen some of Shuu’s teammates do that, but it’s always the kids and, even tongue in cheek, it would feel out of place to start doing it now.) Should he be touching Shuu at all; could it possibly be misconstrued? Is it still misconstrued when it might just be Shuu seeing what Tatsuya doesn’t want him to? Is it bad not to be this transparent? Should just a nod and more small talk suffice?

They’re in the vestibule; there’s space, but no room for excuses or brushing past Shuu to go nowhere. Shuu looks back at Tatsuya, and then touches his shoulder.

Tatsuya catches himself before he flinches; he wants it but doesn’t want to want it; he wants more than just that. Greedy, undeserving.

“Hi,” he says.

Shuu smiles. “Hi.”

Tatsuya busies himself helping with the prep work and then, once Shuu waves him off, watching Taiga and Shougo, Taiga in Shougo’s lap and Shougo’s hand playing with Taiga’s hair. They’re cute; they’re happy, and Tatsuya forces his gaze to go anywhere but Shuu at the grill, aggressively brushing across the top, flipping the meat with none of the pizazz of a TV character or the star of a grill commercial. The way Tatsuya used to tease him and Shuu used to ask him if he could do better but then say he’d probably get meat everywhere the way he cooks. The planks of the deck are buckling; they need replacement. They did over the summer, too, when they’d—no. Tatsuya stretches his arm unnecessarily.

The grass rustles; one of Shuu’s neighbor’s cats is here, a tortoiseshell who’s lived here longer than Tatsuya’s known Shuu. She pads over to Tatsuya, remembers him apparently. Probably because he used to feed her cheese, but he’ll take looking for a handout over being ignored.

“Hey,” he says, softly.

The cat butts her head against his ankle and he reaches out. She sniffs his hand and knocks against it with her nose, rubs his palm with her cheek. Tatsuya scratches her head, reaching for her cheeks and behind her ears.

“No cheese today.”

She doesn’t seem to care.

Shuu seems to have caught the end of that; he’s looking over at them when Tatsuya lifts his head. The wind shifts; smoke from the grill blows in Tatsuya’s direction and the cat’s gone, through the grass and away again. Shuu turns back to the meat, flips one of the burgers again, and Tatsuya scoots forward on the step.

“And we’re done,” says Shuu, turning the dials on the grill before he starts to move the meat over to plates.

Tatsuya’s mind is already preparing for what doesn’t come, Shuu saying he gets first choice because he’d helped unlike some people (Taiga and Shougo trying to look guilty but clearly still wrapped up in each other). Tatsuya’s careful that his fingers don’t brush Shuu’s when Shuu hands him his plate; he goes back to the steps and picks at the label on his beer bottle. Taiga takes three patties, and Tatsuya doesn’t have to pick up the sound waves to hear Shougo saying something about his mouth. Tatsuya is not aching for a stupid routine like that, thank you very much. He’s just a little bit…something.

They eat in silence, and Tatsuya finishes too quickly; there’s only so many times he can compliment Shuu’s grilling without it spilling over into something weird. He rubs his thumb on the neck of the bottle, considers getting another burger but lets himself stare off into space and concentrates on last nights missteps. The literal ones (his sloppy feet), the times he’d let himself fall into a trap, cornered and forced to make a weak pass out that got picked off, the times he’d overcommitted to lunging for a steal and instead left an open spotlight to hang a J. The times he’d had exactly this sort of thought, and Shuu had reached around him from behind and kissed him on the cheek because he’d known, because he’d wanted to stop Tatsuya getting hung up on the past. Tatsuya nearly laughs at the phrase drifting through his thoughts. He needs to get faster, though; if there’s anything he can learn from last night that’s it.

Something nudges against his foot; the cat’s back. Tatsuya sets down his plate and she climbs into his lap, slower than she had in the summer. She’s got to be getting up there in years for an outdoor cat. The deck creaks; Taiga’s clamoring to his feet. He reaches over to pick up Tatsuya’s empty plate.

“I’ll get it. You did the prep.”

Shougo follows him into the house, the back door banging shut behind him. It would be nice if they'd do the dishes, though the grilling stuff is still out here. Tatsuya looks at the grill and back at Shuu, who seems to be sitting closer on the step. Maybe it’s just dangerously wishful thinking. The cat’s purring in his lap as he strokes her back; the dangerous thing about all of this is how good it feels, how letting it feel like something he wants to have back is something Tatsuya can’t even consciously control. He wants this; he wants to stay here, take Shuu to bed. Shuu’s hand is empty and open on the step, so close; when he looks up to Shuu’s face again Shuu is looking at him. He tilts his head.

Fuck.

The tug is magnetic, like that first night right outside the bar, like so many cold mornings when they’d both had practice, like—

The doorknob clicks open and Tatsuya jerks straight up; the cat yelps digs in her claws (right through his jeans) before jumping down, not even bothering to send a glare back his way.

“Any more dishes?” says Taiga.

“We’ll get them,” says Shuu.

“I’ll get the stuff from the grill,” says Tatsuya, pushing himself to his feet so he doesn’t have to look at Shuu.

They work on the dishes in silence, but Tatsuya’s thoughts are whirring inside his head like the fan on an old computer clogged with dust. He still hasn’t apologized; they’d almost kissed and it could have meant nothing (or, well, not a lot) and he still hasn't apologized.

“I’m sorry,” Tatsuya says, loud enough to pierce the sound of the running water. “I’m sorry I dumped you the way I did. I didn’t give either of us enough credit. I didn’t give you a chance to let me know how you were feeling, and I just assumed. And I’m sorry I did it to hurt you.”

He bites his tongue before he can get in a self-deprecating remark about it being long overdue. This isn’t a speech about him being shitty in general (they’ll only end up further back than where they started that way); it’s not to grant him absolution, either. Shuu shuts off the water and puts the glass in the drying rack. There are still dishes in the sink, but Tatsuya doesn’t move to start washing again. He puts the sponge down.

Shuu looks at him, shifting his weight so he’s leaning his elbow on the sink, the way he used to do before he’d kiss Tatsuya and they’d argue over which of them would do the rest of the dishes. There’s no real smile on his face now; he’s far from leaning forward.

“Thanks. I…I know you didn’t. I could have done more, too; I just let you go with your assumptions and I should have made a bigger effort—I cared about keeping you in my life, and I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to stick around. But I’m glad you apologized.”

Tatsuya wants to say that it’s not Shuu’s fault, automatically, but that’s more of the same problem. He waves his hand.

“It’s. You know.”

(Not okay, but behind them as much as it can be, and not something Tatsuya wanted to hear an apology for.)

“Yeah,” says Shuu, exhaling, and on his face is almost a smile.

“Now go and entertain your guests,” says Tatsuya. “I’ll finish the dishes.”

There’s no argument that Tatsuya’s a guest too; as Shuu walks out to the living room Tatsuya turns the water back on. Maybe Shuu needs a bit of a breather the same as Tatsuya; maybe he’s been saving these thoughts the way Tatsuya has, crafting sentences like a shootout strategy when all your video on the goalie is outdated. Tatsuya feels like crying all over again, scrubbing at a knife and blinking rapidly. It’s like peeling off a scab that hasn’t quite healed yet, halfway fused to his skin, and here he is bleeding raw feelings just like a fresh cut, as if he’d done it all over again. He has to drive back; he has to face Shuu before then. Tatsuya takes a shuddery breath, calming himself, and squeezes out more soap onto the sponge.

He hugs Shuu briefly when they leave. It’s too quick to be awkward, but both Taiga and Shougo are staring at him from the backseat of the car. Tatsuya turns up the radio and they don’t ask about Shuu, or about Tatsuya’s hands tight on the wheel, or about the shitty commercials on the pop station Tatsuya’s not going to bother to change.

* * *

Driving down to the Garden after practice isn’t bad when you avoid midday traffic, and Tatsuya successfully loiters around and stops at Starbucks for a latte. He takes the long way down, towards the west part of the Bronx and back over into Manhattan, down the West Side Highway. It’s cloudy but the river is clear of ice, blue-gray-green and as pretty as it ever gets if you can forget about all the pollution. At least thinking about the river is a distraction from thinking about this media thing. Go in, shoot a few videos for the social team, and avoid the fuss over early evening hockey (goddamn, the floor looks wrong with ice over it). At least the Rangers are playing the Devils; some good might come of this game (and he might see Shuu—not likely, but more than if the Rangers were playing some other team).

The videos are mindless and over fairly quickly; there’s not even anyone from the Rangers to kick them out of the locker room, though a few players are milling around outside on their phones when Tatsuya leaves. He knows the bowels of this building too well to take a wrong turn, but he still almost makes one anyway, toward the visitors’ locker room. He doesn’t even look down the corridor, though; it’s better to move forward out towards the parking lot. That’s where he ends up running into Shuu.

Shuu’s got an iced coffee in one hand and his car keys in the other; his hair looks messy like he’d forgotten to gel it down after his nap and something warm wraps around Tatsuya’s stomach, suddenly tender to the sensation.

“Hi, Shuu.”

“Uh, hey,” says Shuuzou. “Morning game?”

“Nah. Social media thing.”

“Oh. Cool.”

Tatsuya nods. Shuu nods back and takes a sip of his drink; maybe that’s Tatsuya’s signal to move past him. Shuu doesn’t look like he’s in a hurry to see him go, then.

“You, uh, coming to the game tonight?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Do you want to? I mean, I could probably hook you up with an extra ticket or—” Shuu waves his hand.

His cheeks are slightly flushed, like when he’d asked Tatsuya if they were dating now, in what seems like it was another geological era.

“I can buy one,” says Tatsuya. “Some of that money goes back to my paycheck, so…”

Shuu grins. “If you’re up for it.”

“Of course.”

Tatsuya pats Shuu’s shoulder on the way past him into the lot; he does not look behind him to see if Shuu’s watching him go (if he did, if Shuu was, there’s no way he’d be able to resist going straight back, probably hit by a fucking car on the way). This is—not nothing; Tatsuya can’t force himself this far into denial right now. This is something, and Shuu’s not dissuading him, not clarifying it as a favor to what they once had been, or because he cares all that much about seeing red jerseys in the crowd, or because they’re platonic somethings or other now.

Still, wearing Shuu’s sweater would be too bold a move for now; Tatsuya’s hand lingers on the one Shuu had given him (game-worn but clean), and moves to the blank, nameless one Tatsuya had bought himself the first time he’d been out to the Rock.

The price of his one ticket’s not cheap, but for a gameday rinkside seat it could probably be worse. There’s no substitute for when the Devils come on the ice, the adolescent Rangers fan next to Tatsuya glaring at him for daring to stand up and move forward (as if the kid really ants to watch the Devils warm up). Most of the forwards are cycling the puck; the goalies are stretching. One of the D-men skates over next to them; he’s the guy Tatsuya sort of knows through going to his charity golf outings with Shuu. Tatsuya knocks on the glass; the guy turns and grins at him. Tatsuya lifts his cup of beer in a mock toast; it’s met with a rap of the elbow from the other side of the glass.

“Hey, Niji!”

Shuu pivots like a figure skater at his teammate's shout; he’s grinning when he gets there. They can’t really talk over the glass, but he tosses a puck over; it lands right in the sweet spot of the netting where it slides down and falls through into Tatsuya's hand.

Shuu bumps the glass with his shoulder and then he’s off again; Tatsuya sits back down.

“How’d he get that?” says the kid next to him.

“Friends in high places,” says Tatsuya.

Talking to random kids, anything to stop thinking about how brazenly Shuu is flirting with him, how much he’s showing his hand. Tatsuya should be the one who’s forced into doing this if he wants to; it’s him being closed off that had gotten them here. But maybe that’s Shuu’s way of saying he knows, Shuu’s way of saying he’s not just going to wait around and hope, no matter whose turn it is to do what. This isn’t like poker; it’s closer to hockey, the constant cycle of turnovers. Maybe Tatsuya’s got to push things ahead if he wants them, but this is Shuu’s way of clearing the puck up ahead for him, giving him a chance to move in on his own. Tatsuya’s not drunk enough yet to excuse shitty extended sports metaphors, even to himself—Shuu wrists the puck into the empty net and cycles back; the backup goalie’s already gone back into the locker room.

The game is good, if Tatsuya can say much about it afterwards. He can’t, really; there were shots and goals and saves and hits (one hit Shuu had in particular, walling off the Rangers’ second-line center cleanly to a smattering of applause from the scattered Devils fans in the building), blocks and penalties and missed chances and bad calls, but it all gets scattered into the bottom of the hockey compartment in Tatsuya’s brain. There are more pressing things, Shuu swinging back around during a break in the action in that totally-pretending-not-to-see-you way, the ghosts of past games leaping up at him, reminding him of Shuu scoring and saying afterwards in a low voice that goal was for him, losses that had stung like a motherfucker, after which Tatsuya would drive Shuu around and let him swear or just sit in silence until the route circled back on itself and they’d go back to Tatsuya’s place. How could Tatsuya ever think he could end it with one grudging slam of the door?

He texts Shuu after the game, first a congratulations for the win and then he doesn’t hesitate.

_ want to come back to my place for drinks? _

_ sure :) _

Tatsuya takes a breath. Shuu’s got some time to go before he’s out of the locker room.

It's warm for February, up in the high sixties with light rain even hours after dark, as if the seasons short-circuited. Tatsuya’s never understood that saying about a lane of memories, but he’s walking down it right now, the sleeve of his sweater nearly brushing Shuu’s suit jacket on a familiar route winding back from the arena. They’ve done this so many times after one of them has a game, after mediocre arena rock concerts in the summer, after walking from somewhere else and falling into the same way back. Tatsuya keeps almost catching Shuu’s eye but looking away, at the sidewalk or at his sleeve. He’s a fucking coward; he’s afraid of wanting to kiss Shuu more than he already does, wanting to break down in front of him all over again. He can control himself, but he doesn’t want to.

They can let this pass and avoid the issue like it’s a slow blueliner coming out of the neutral zone, at the risk of smacking into something else, yes, and—it’s exhausting to think about. It never hasn’t been since they broke up. Tatsuya keeps waking up and telling himself that today’s the day he puts it behind him and makes himself live with the fact that he’d let the best possible thing he could have had slip away through his grasp, but he doesn’t fucking want to. Shuu had invited him; Shuu had tossed over the puck; Shuu had said yes to this, and he knows the implications. Sometimes Tatsuya has to be the one who makes the final leap, trusting Shuu will catch him on the other side of the rift between them. It’s less than an inch; it feels like miles; Tatsuya lets himself keep looking at Shuu’s face.

Shuu catches his eye, and Tatsuya holds his gaze.

“I miss you.”

He watches Shuu swallow, the movement in his neck, gaze softening (though it’s already been like cashmere). Shuu reaches, and Tatsuya doesn’t flinch. He lets Shuu take his hand, fingertips cool and rough across his palm, shielding it from the rain.

“I miss you, too.”

Shuu’s voice is dry, and his fingers brush over Tatsuya’s knuckles.

“I want to be with you,” Tatsuya says, and Shuu waits, giving him as much room as he needs—as much room as they both need. “I want to make it easier for both of us.”

There is more, more that he doesn’t want to say, retreading how stupid he’d been, saying that it had been worth it (because it had) no matter how he’d felt. He squeezes Shuu’s hand. The street is empty; there’s no one to care that they’ve stopped in the middle. They could have waited—well, not really; the longer they hold hands the more urgent it seems. How stupid it would have been to wait for mood lighting and hardwood floors, the sound of cars on wet streets ten floors away.

“Me, too,” says Shuu. “You’re going to have to let me know how you’re feeling, you know—but. This is a good start.”

The sentence makes Tatsuya feel like the floor’s come out from under his stomach; he wants to puke and he wants to hug Shuu and he wants to be yell something all at once.

“Thank—”

“You don’t owe me shit,” says Shuu.

Tatsuya concedes, for now; he leans up against Shuu, the firm familiarity of his chest and the spot on his neck where he likes to be kissed.

“God,” says Shuu, with all the wonder of their first night together.

Tatsuya’s not going to hide how good that feels.

“Let’s go home,” says Shuu.


End file.
